Chrysler Building

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Chrysler Building

• 405 Lexington Avenue
• New York City, NY

Nick Decent Arsenis Hadjiagapiou Shawn Hall Dylan
Phelan Ashley Rose
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Development

• Developed by William H. Reynolds architect
  William Van Alen, in 1928
• Worlds Tallest Building (30-31)
• Reynolds sold lease and design plans to Walter P.
  Chrysler
• Faced competition from the Bank of Manhattan
  Company

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Development

• Originally designed to be 808 ft tall, revised to
  925 ft
• Bank of Manhattan Tower designed and built to a
  height of 927 ft
• Van Alen constructed the 185 ft spire
• Cost 15 million (17
  billion today)

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Owners

• Walter P. Chrysler, Chairman of the Chrysler
  Corporation
• Sol Goldman and Alex Di Lorenzo
• Mass. Mutual Life Insurance Company
• Jack Kent Cooke, a Washington D.C. investor
• Tishman Speyer Properties (25) and TMW Real
  Estate Group (75)

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Current Use

• Offices occupied by various industries
• An assortment of retail stores/amenities are
  located throughout the building
• Lobby is open to the public
• Observation deck (closed)
• Cloud Club (closed in 1979)

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Architecture

• Style Art Deco (Exposition Internationale des
  Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes)
• Material White brick and metal façade
• Nirosta Dome
• Blend of Industrial and Chrysler images

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Exterior

• Black Granite Entrance
• 61st Floor Eagles
• Hubcaps
• Hood Ornaments

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Interior

• Elegant Lobby
• Beautiful Murals
• Unique Elevators
• Recently Renovated

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Former Amenities

• Cloud Club
• Observatory

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Structural Stability

• 1046 feet tall
• H-Plan
• Setbacks at 16th, 23rd and 30th floor
• 4 banks of 8 elevators
• Nirosta steel
• 3,862 windows
• 20,000 tons
• 400,000 rivets

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Lateral Loads

• Designed to sway
• Stiff inner core
• Elevators act as shear walls
• Reinforced with steel trusses
• Diagonal beams add additional support

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Basics

• Constructed by Fred T. Ley Co
• 77 floors
• First building to surpass 1000 ft
• 20,961 tons of structural steel
• 391,881 rivets
• 3,826,000 bricks

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Construction Time Line

• Construction began 9/19/28
• Materials steel, brick
• 4 floors built per week
• 185 ft spire built in the elevator shaft
• Construction completed 5/28/30

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Safety

• 3,000 construction workers
• Outstanding safety record
• Zero fatalities
• Rare for time period
• Due to the new phone system

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Since Then

• Original lighting scheme installed in 1980s
• Renovated in 1978-79
• Restoration complete in 1995
• Tallest standing brick building in the world

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Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Systems

• Overview
• 32 Full-length Elevators
• 35 miles of piping
• 750 miles of electrical wiring

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Elevator System

• Built by Otis Elevator Corp.
• Tallest elevator system in the world at time of
  construction
• Originally capable of rates up to 1200 ft/min,
  (20ft/sec) deemed unsafe speed by city officials

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Temperature Control System

• Contract with Carrier Engineering
• Among first buildings to include air conditioning
  system
• Manufactured Weather system revolutionary for
  its time

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Television and Radio Broadcasting

• Uppermost floors too slanted to be useful for
  offices used to house mechanical and
  broadcasting equipment
• Former broadcasting home of WCBS-TV and several
  radio stations